Mayor Watts Turned Over Morris’ Unredacted Bills to 3rd Party Last Year without Council Approval

Mayor Watts Turned Over Morris’ Unredacted Bills to 3rd Party Last Year without Council Approval

CENTRAL — Last August, Central Mayor Mac Watts turned over hundreds of pages of “unredacted” monthly legal bills from City Attorney Sheri Morris to a 3rd party without approval by the City Council.

Now Watts is demanding that City Councilman Tony LoBue resign as chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Legal Services because LoBue asked committee members to view some of the same bills.

LoBue’s committee was charged by the Mayor with making recommendations on how the City of Central should obtain legal services.

On July 28, 2010, Central resident Mike Mannino made a Public Records Request to examine legal bills from City Attorney Sheri Morris.  Such requests are supposed to be honored immediately or within no more than 72 hours under Louisiana’s Public Records Law.  However, Morris took more than a week to respond and, instead of providing copies of her bills, provided “redacted,” or blackened out, copies which obscured virtually everything that could explain what the charges are for.  On Aug. 10, 2010, the City Council directed Morris to produce the records.

On Aug. 24, 2010, Mayor Mac Watts asked the City Council to approve a resolution by Councilman Louis DeJohn, which would have provided that Morris’ unredacted, or original, bills would be turned over to local attorney Steven Stockstill to review.  The minutes of the City Council meeting say, “After discussion it was determined that Resolution 2010-22 was never adopted.”

Nevertheless, five years’ of unredacted monthly legal bills were turned over to Stockstill for review.

Stockstill reported to the City Council that his review showed that there was no basis for Morris to have redacted the records.  Furthermore, he said, the records should have been turned over to Mannino immediately upon request.

By Woody Jenkins, Editor, Central City News

Copyright 2011 by Central City News, Box 1, Central, LA 70739

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